Direction of Inquiry

I recently had a tutorial with Paula to discuss my progress in the module and where I am at with choosing a topic for inquiry. I talked through my initial ideas and that I had decided to focus on the similarities and differences between a dance class environment and a dance rehearsal environment. I came to this conclusion because of the current work I am doing and the work I plan to do in the future. I am currently rehearsing in Spain with Mediterranean Hotels Entertainment. We are rehearsing four, one hour production shows that we will perform in four venues until March 2017. I participate as well as take certain rehearsals as I am dance captain. It is my responsibility to run rehearsals when the choreographer is not there. In previous blogs I have spoken about the teaching work I do whilst I am in England. It currently looks like my future work will be heavily based in teaching as myself and a fellow business partner are currently in the process of purchasing an established dance school by September 2017.

My first thoughts where that I wanted to look at the similarities and differences between a class and rehearsal environment as I want to be able to best prepare my students for the different circumstances they will find themselves in so that they can always work and perform to their highest ability. This came from a place of personal experience. I felt that when I made the change between going to dance school from the age of 4-16 to professional dance college to study for my Trinity London diploma in Musical Theatre, the expectations of my work and the environments I found myself in where a shock. It was very different to what I was used to and I had to work to adapt in order to develop as a performer. I want to be able pin point aspects of a professional working dance environment such as a rehearsal and investigate its significance in order to pass on this knowledge to my future students and possible incorporate changes in my teaching.

When I spoke to Paula about this she pointed out that if I were to look at the similarities and differences between a class environment with children and a professional rehearsal I would need to observe both environments in detail.This would be virtually impossible as I will be living and working in Spain till at least the end of March next year so well into my module three work. After thinking through this I have decided I will need to focus mainly on the rehearsal environment and less on the comparison element. I will still be able to implement my findings in my teaching so the inquiry will still impact my future career. Paula also pointed out that it is very important to consider the age of the participants in the environment I am studying. The type of learning and work of college students would be very different to that of young children. I think now I intend to focus on a professional rehearsal process this is less relevant as the term professional denotes that it will be adults participating, at least in the case of the rehearsals I will be able to observe personally. However thinking about children in the environment is something I can consider with further research without personal observation.

Now it was time to narrow down the inquiry field even further. A word that sparked my interest in my talk with Paula was the word 'preparation'. We spoke about it in terms of what the very nature of a rehearsal is, the preparation of a performance. I wish to look further into what is meant by the term 'preparation' particularly in terms of performance. Questions that I am considering and will research and develop further are:

What elements must be present in your preparation in order to be ready for a performance?
What elements effect the preparation for a performance?
Is preparation the key to a successful performance?

I would very much like to hear from everybody their thoughts on my current line of inquiry. I will now be looking at other practitioners work in order to consolidate my inquiry.